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Izuku wakes with a gasp and the sight of his mother drenched in blood burned into his vision, green hair splayed out on the concrete and matted with gore.
He forces himself to sit up, to take even breaths but every time he closes his eyes, all he can see is her parted mouth, and dull eyes frozen in pain. He shudders reflexively, one hand covering his mouth as he dry-heaves and has to wrestle with his stomach to keep his dinner down.
Izuku eyes the clock beside his bed and groans; it’s only just midnight, but there’s no way he’s going to be able to sleep now for hours, not after a dream like that. Not with the nomu that haunts his dreams following him into every waking shadow, its heavy breathing just behind his shoulder.
Izuku groans and rolls out of bed. It’s been a while since he’s had a dream this bad, but he’s fairly certain his mum won’t mind if he goes and checks on her. It’d be hypocritical if she did, he thinks guiltily, recalling the times she peeks into his room late at night, only to sigh in soft relief when she sees him.
He’s a lighter sleeper than she thinks, but Izuku has no plans to tell her that even the slightest creak of the floorboards outside his room is enough to wake him these days. Besides, it soothes him as well, because if his mother is checking on him, she’s safe too. But Izuku is very conscious of the fact that his mother’s late-night check-ins only really began after he joined the Hero Course. After the USJ, to be exact. They only worsened after Hosu. It says a lot, considering the dorms were implemented immediately after the USJ. Nearly every night Izuku has spent at home, he hears his mother wake.
Izuku trembles suddenly, in a chill that comes from within rather than their apartment. It’s with practiced, quiet footsteps that Izuku slips out of his room and down the hallway, his heartbeat still too fast within his chest.
As carefully as he can, Izuku opens the door to his mother’s bedroom, and sighs in relief when he can see her asleep in bed.
She’s safe, he thinks, and turns to leave when he hears it.
Someone else is breathing in his mother’s room.
With the ghost of a nomu behind his shoulder, and an intruder in his mother’s room, Izuku doesn’t hesitate.
He slams the door wide open again, but instead of the door banging into the wall it’s caught by a strip of -
Izuku pulls his punch before he can break Shouta’s nose, and steps back, bending over in fear and relief.
“What the fuck?” Izuku hisses, keeping his voice low only so as to not wake his mother.
Shouta raises an eyebrow, barely visible in what little light is leaking into the room from the window. He jerks his head to the door and Izuku nods, casting one more glance towards his mother, relieved she hasn’t woken.
Now that he thinks about it, it’s kind of embarrassing that he didn’t realise that if someone else would be in their flat, it would be Shouta. The man has a key for crying out loud. Even if he seems to have come over straight after a patrol, judging from the goggles still pushed up on his forehead rather than hanging around his neck.
... Given everything, it’s no wonder that by the time Shouta is flicking on the living room lights with the dimmer on low, Izuku is trying to rub away tears that are half fear and half shame.
“Hey,” Shouta says gently, and then he’s striding back across the room to pull Izuku into a firm hug. “Come sit with me, Problem Child.”
Izuku nods weakly, and resists the urge to go boneless in Shouta’s hold. Thankfully, Shouta only releases him long enough to get them both onto the couch, before he sits and pulls Izuku down to press against his side.
He probably isn’t expecting Izuku to half crawl into his lap, and tuck his face into Shouta’s capture weapon, but as Izuku doesn’t end up shoved onto the floor, he figures it’s fine. “I’m sorry,” Izuku manages to choke out past his tears. “I didn’t - I didn’t realise it was you.”
“I figured,” Shouta teases gently. But his words are betrayed by the way he drops his chin onto Izuku’s head. “Did you have a nightmare?” he asks gently, and Izuku presses himself closer to his dad teacher mother’s boyfriend.
“It was the nomu,” Izuku admits, in the safety of the brightly lit living room and Shouta’s arms. “It killed Mum. I just - I had to see her.”
“I see,” Shouta says. “And then there was someone else in her room.”
“Mm,” Izuku hums, and then, even as his own heart rate is finally settling, he realises that the rhythmic thudding he can hear is Shouta’s heartbeat.
It’s stupidly and irrationally soothing, Izuku thinks, even as he tilts his head to shift his ear right over the man’s heart. “Wha - oh,” Shouta murmurs. “Problem Child,” he says, and there’s fondness soaking his tone, more than Izuku’s ever heard from him before. “At least let me get comfortable before you fall asleep.”
Izuku whines in protest as Shouta moves one arm from around him, but the other squeezes tight around his waist in reassurance. “I’m not going anywhere, just reclining the sofa.”
Oh.
Izuku relaxes slightly, and returns his focus to Shouta’s steady heartbeat, to his even breathing and the rhythm the man has started tapping onto his shoulder blade. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says impulsively, and shamelessly snuggles closer as the sofa shifts. “If you’re here, we’re safe.” The change in angle prompts Izuku to curl himself more around Shouta, until he’s all but plastered himself to the man’s front.
Shouta huffs out a soft breath. “I’m glad to be here.” He hesitates, then, and soft lips press themselves against Izuku’s hair. “And I’m very glad to be part of your life, Izuku.”
When Izuku finally drops off to sleep, Shouta sighs in relief. The teen’s face has lost its stress in sleep, and while the bags under his eyes have yet to disappear, it’s clear the rest is already doing him some good.
“What am I to do with you?” Shouta whispers to the teen, who merely mumbles incoherently and wriggles impossibly closer as he sleeps. Well, Shouta thinks wryly, the kid certainly has the right idea.
It’s late, after all, and with Izuku’s soft breaths against his neck, the quiet reminder that his child student girlfriend’s son is alive, Shouta finds himself relaxing despite his usual post-patrol anxiety. So, after he reaches up and tugs his goggles off, and manages to snag a blanket to drape over them both, Shouta follows suit.
Of course, it’s to the sound of a camera click that Shouta wakes up and he’s glowering in Inko’s direction before he even fully opens his eyes. “Really?” he whispers incredulously, and Inko giggles at his tone.
With great effort, Shouta opens his eyes properly to see his girlfriend smirking down at him, her eyes almost unbearably fond as she looks at both him and the teen limpeted onto his front. “You’re both so cute,” she tells Shouta, and he just knows there’s a tell-tale blush appearing on his cheeks.
But then Inko’s small smile drops, and she perches on the arm of the couch to run her fingers through Izuku’s tangled hair. “He had another nightmare, didn’t he.”
It’s not a question.
Shouta simply nods once, and then winces slightly. Reclined or not, sleeping on the couch without doing his post-patrol stretches has done his sore muscles no favours; not that he regrets the comfort he clearly brought Izuku. “If you’re here, we’re safe,” rings softly through Shouta’s mind, the trust dripping from his kid’s words...
Inko’s eyes glimmer with faint amusement, but her mouth is still pulled down in a faint frown as she watches her son, and Shouta delights in dragging his maudlin thoughts to the present and watching his girlfriend’s expressions.
Before he can think about it, Shouta reaches out and gently thumbs the corner of her mouth, smoothing away the lines of her frown. “He’ll be alright,” he tells Inko, and she nods, although her eyes are shadowed with grief. Grief for the loss of innocence that Izuku was too young to have felt. Like Shouta had been.
It’s not a surprise, really, that Izuku is having such awful nightmares, not when the first year training camp was cut short abruptly by the Legaue of Villains attack on the third years. All training camps had been cancelled as a precaution, much to 1-A’s dismay but all too familiar understanding. As soon as the word nomu started circulating, the dread in Class 1-A had silenced any complaints from 1-B.
Shouta isn’t sure why the focus of the League switched from his own class to the upper years, but he can’t help but feel relieved the heat is off his students. The third years are competent, not fully pros only due to their age, not because of lack of skill or talent. It’s awful, yes, that they had their training camp attacked, when they should’ve been safe and learning, but the League had also underestimated them.
That was their mistake. With the entirety of the so-called Vanguard Action Squad all but beaten by a pulp by twenty-five angry third years, the League’s attack was a major failure. There weren’t even any major injuries, save some damage Hadou had done to herself as her quirk evidently mutated massively under stress, even more so than it had right before the Sports Festival.
Only the elusive Kurogiri had escaped the wrath of the third years, the rest taken into custody with extreme prejudice. Rumours are, there was more than one pissed off upperclassmen seething with rage that the League had gone after their juniors.
But either way, the damage has been done and that trauma has been dug up again for Izuku, and all Shouta can do is offer what comfort he can. And maybe call Hound Dog, see if he’s free for a session with the kid over break.
Speaking of... Izuku stirs at last, long habit of waking up early persisting even into the holidays. Shouta can’t fault him for it, though he wishes somewhat irrationally that Izuku would stay sleeping and peaceful forever. Or at least another hour.
The bags under his eyes are huge and dark, and Shouta despairs endlessly of them with Inko.
“Sho?” Izuku murmurs softly, clearly confused as he peels himself up off of Shouta’s neck, and it is a bit gross admittedly with both of them sleeping warm. “Mama?”
“Good morning,” Inko says, and Izuku looks at her, a shadow of his nightmare flashing over his face only to be replaced with relief. Shouta relaxes his grip on Izuku, expecting the teen to embrace his mother, and is unfairly startled when the brat instead tugs his mother onto his lap as well.
Even as Shouta wheezes for breath, he can’t be truly annoyed because Inko and Izuku are laughing.
“Don’t forget about detention for the first two weeks,” Shouta reminds Izuku. The brat had somehow easily convinced him to spar with him, under the guise of training.
Well. The teen is a workaholic, but Shouta can also tell the brat just wants to spend time with him. It’s disgustingly sweet.
“I remember. I don’t really mind,” Izuku says, and he looks down at his feet to adjust his stance as per Shouta’s directions. “Like this?”
“That’s it,” Shouta confirms. He doubts he’ll have to remind Izuku again; the kid is like a steel trap of information. “You don’t mind detention.”
“My friends are noisy,” Izuku grins sheepishly. “I can do my homework faster when they’re not around. Besides,” and the brat looks suspiciously pleased with himself, “you’re the supervising teacher most days so it’s even better!”
“...The point of detention is punishment,” Shouta retorts, instead of addressing that , which definitely doesn’t fill him with stupid fondness for the teen. “Should I make you run laps instead?”
“Extra training!”
“Insufferable brat.”
“And yet you suffer me anyway.”
The squawk Shouta gets from the teen as he tosses him gently to the ground is music to his ears. Heroes should be prepared for attacks at any time, after all.
Of course, it’s Shouta letting out an uncharacteristic squeak which he’ll deny to his dying day when Inko strolls up behind him, like she so often does when she’s going to give him an embrace from behind, and instead throws him.
Izuku, the brat, somehow manages to catch the whole thing on his phone and has sent it to Hizashi before Shouta’s experience wins out over Inko’s surprise move.
In the end, despite the restless night, it’s a good day.